The SN Rushmore project names four professional athletes from 13 cities who have had at least four of the following five leagues represented for at least 20 years – NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, WNBA. While there are no strict rules regarding selected athletes, our panel of experts considers individual resumes, team success and legacy in the sporting landscape of each city. Multiple players from the same franchise are allowed, and not every franchise needs to be represented. All sports fans have an opinion on this topic. It’s ours.
There’s nothing you can’t find in Los Angeles: sunshine, beaches, theme parks, restaurants, museums, shopping, hiking, music, theater. For a while, it’s true, you can’t find NFL football there, but now they have twice as many teams anywhere, including the Super Bowl champions.
On top of that, even above the Hollywood sign, there’s the Lakers.
MORE: Check out The Sporting News Rushmore from 13 cities
LA loves the Dodgers, but it feeds the Lakers.
“This city — and I’ve been here for 25 years — when this city rocked and rocked and the stars aligned was when the Lakers won the championship,” Dave Miller, for years a Lakers analyst on radio and television, told the News. Sport.
It’s hard to explain how a region with so much to offer, particularly the wide variety of spectator sports, could be obsessed with one thing. Or maybe not. It might be as simple as Elgin, Wilt, Logo, James, Coop, Shaq, Big Shot Bob, Pau, LeBron and AD.
Imagine being home to this amazing array of basketball talents and realizing that there is no room for any of these greats in LA’s Mount Rushmore sport, even with three of the four spots occupied by the Lakers legend.
LA is building a long-lasting multi-billion dollar entertainment industry on stars and glitz and excitement, and that’s how their favorite basketball team works. So it’s not easy to choose which Lakers fit best in the sport of Mount Rushmore LA, or make the decision to exclude players like Clayton Kershaw, Wayne Gretzky and Marcus Allen.
That doesn’t mean we’re wrong, just to remind you that it’s hard.
MAGIC JOHNSON (Lakers, 1979-91, 1996)
After a rookie season that included averages of 18.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 7.7 assists, it might have been clear that the Magic was going to be an all-time NBA great because Game 6 of the 1980 NBA World Championship Series began with him stepping into hoop to jump the opening ball. This may interest you : Opinion: The political disappearance of Boris Johnson offers a lesson for American Republicans. The next few hours cleared any lingering doubts.
With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sidelined with an ankle injury, Johnson took over all center position duties and did so for no reason. The Lakers clinched the title with a 123-107 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers fueled by Johnson’s 42 points, 15 rebounds and 7 assists. Philly’s two early big men, Darryl Dawkins and Caldwell Jones, scored less than half of what Johnson did – combined.
The show alone may have led our fictional sculptors to scramble their hammers and chisels to get to work on Johnson’s engraving. He would almost certainly smile in that depiction.
“He will always be loved,” Mark Whicker, Hall of Fame sports columnist on the Orange County Register and later the Los Angeles Daily News, told The Sporting News. “Kobe Bryant did have people who would say, ‘Well, he shot too much. He’s selfish.’ That was him for a long time. But there is little criticism of Magic in any way, shape or form.
“And in a basketball sense, he revived the franchise. When he showed up in ’79, they were fine, but they weren’t that great for a while. They are also boring. The fact that he can show up and energize Kareem, and they won the championship, and won the championship the night Kareem wasn’t there… all those things add to the myth.”
Although he played only a dozen full seasons, Johnson ranks sixth among NBA players in career assists. He finished third in the triple-double. The Lakers won five championships with him in the lineup and reached the NBA Finals nine times.
His rivalry with Boston Celtics superstar Larry Bird not only defined an era but also launched the sport into the prominent position it enjoys today among America’s many popular sports and helped spread the gospel of the game around the world.
By the early 1987 Finals, the Lakers had won three titles with Johnson twice named playoff MVP, and the Celtics had won three with Bird twice named playoff MVP. The rivalry was as close as it could be, and once again they faced off in the title series. This time, with the Lakers 2-1 up in the series but a point behind in Game 4, Johnson picked up a pass near the left with 7 seconds remaining and saw Kevin McHale slide to his defense. Johnson dribbled three times to reach the center of the lane and rose to fire a “junior skyhook”, as Whicker calls it, over McHale’s long left arm. His shot fell straight over the net, and the Lakers won the series in six games.
“The whole Magic vs. Bird was a bit conflicted at the time. It was a debate,” Whicker said. “After that, the Lakers won in ’87 and ’88 and it became very clear that the Magic were ahead of the competition. That ’87 shot is iconic, because of the meaning.”
Johnson remains a towering figure in LA even for how he handled his forced retirement. In the fall of 1991, an emergency press conference was held and Johnson stood before the media gathered at the Forum and a national TV audience and declared, “Because of the HIV virus that I have achieved, I must announce my retirement from the Lakers today.” At the time, with treatment for the virus that causes AIDS still developing, it looked like his basketball career was coming to an end.
“I’ve never been more surprised in my life,” Whicker said. “Back then, it was a death sentence in the minds of most people. He became a symbol that HIV does not have to exist. Of course, he had a lot of resources, but the fact that he was able to play in the All-Star Game in February of that year was simply amazing. And then the Dream Team. He is a symbol for people affected by the virus. So I think that sort of thing puts him into a different category.
“And he’s always been a great entrepreneur, but in doing so, he keeps the community. He placed theaters in underserved areas, and grocery stores in underserved areas. He does it because he can make money doing it, but he doesn’t have to do it to make money.”
TSN ARCHIVES: Magic Johnson scores with the Showtime Lakers (27 April 1987)
SANDY KOUFAX (Dodgers, 1955-66)
The Dodgers wore the jersey with Los Angeles on the front for the first time in the 1958 season. To see also : Kyrie Irving business rumors: Lakers, Nets are actively discussing deal with Russell Westbrook, according to report. But in the first few years, they played in a convoluted arrangement in a converted football stadium – the left field at the Coliseum is 251 feet, while the center is 425 feet off home plate – with a roster of talented players who are becoming established stars in Brooklyn.
They may be playing in California but Los Angeles doesn’t feel right at home, at least not immediately.
Even on the 1959 Los Angeles team that won the World Series, you have longtime Brooklyn heroes Gil Hodges and Duke Snider in line, with 1955 Game 7 World Series legend Johnny Podres starting twice. But the 1959 World Series did offer Los Angeles a glimpse of what young Sandy Koufax was capable of giving baseball fans on the West Coast. The 23-year-old left-hander with strong arms but little control was outstanding, throwing in nine innings and allowing only one turn in two games against the White Sox.
The future has arrived. Koufax led the National League in nine-half strikes in 1960 and 1961 as he worked to perfect his craft, and by the time the club were about to open their new facility — Dodger Stadium in the beautiful Chavez Ravine setting — Koufax was poised to rock the baseball world.
“Sandy Koufax was truly Los Angeles’ first baseball icon,” said Southern California baseball writer Scott Miller. “His five-year run is arguably the greatest five-year run any pitcher has ever had, the first of which coincided with the opening of Dodger Stadium in 1962.”
Koufax did five seasons at Dodger Stadium, and he led the National League in ERA for five seasons, lowering his ERA to 1.88 or three out of four seasons lower. He achieved 300 strikeouts three times, including a record 382 in 1965. He won three NL Cy Young awards, one MVP trophy and was runner-up in the MVP vote twice. His Baseball Reference page was full of black ink—a league-leading total—for those five years.
The Dodgers made the World Series in 1963, 1965 and 1966, winning in ’63 and ’65. The man with the nickname “The Left Arm of God” was somehow even better against the best team AL has to offer, posting a career 0.95 ERA in 57 World Series rounds.
And then, he retired. The arm that had been kissed by the gods had elbows cursed by demons, and at the age of 30, Koufax had suffered enough. He walked away, a legend on and off the pitch.
“Without trying, he has become the epitome of cool California. It just comes naturally to him,” Miller said. “And I think, the fact that his career was cut short and the fact that he’s always been very secretive, there’s always been an air of mystery with Koufax, because he’s been driving people away, and it’s not all about him. .”
Dodger Stadium has a statue of two players. Jackie Robinson – a franchise and league icon who has never played in Los Angeles – had his statue dedicated in 2017. The statue of Koufax was dedicated in June, clearing all doubts about who was the best player in the history of the California franchise. And it was fitting that Clayton Kershaw, the only player who could make an argument for standing next to Koufax, was there for the ceremony.
“If you sat down and spoke to Clayton Kershaw today, he would no doubt argue that it was Koufax,” Miller said. “He would say, ‘What are you, crazy? That must be Koufax.’ I love that the two of them have developed a friendly relationship over the years, with mutual respect.”
TSN ARCHIVES: Sandy Koufax spins strikeout story (19 October 1963)
KOBE BRYANT (Lakers, 1997-2016)
He joined the Lakers as if he had been produced to star in LA, and in some ways he did, from his pre-fab prom date with pop singer Brandy to Bryant GM Lakers heist Jerry West on draft night for a trade that cost him. To see also : Former Intel executive Diane Bryant on her biggest career regret and the best business advice she’s received. only Vlade Divac (and also freed up stamp space to sign Shaquille O’Neal as a free agent).
Bryant held on to the 13th pick in the draft because NBA executives were still skeptical about whether players could fully succeed after entering the league with no training except high school and summer competitions. Overall, there is some justification for this, but not in the times when they look geniuses in the eye.
“The way he’s molded himself is following Michael Jordan – there’s that advert: I want to be like Mike. I don’t think anyone in the world embraces that the way Kobe Bryant did,” Miller told TSN. “Here comes this kid, Jerry West was just raving about him from practice, Michael Cooper looked after him at practice, and all of a sudden, you make this boy wonder to wear purple and gold.
“He had his trials and tribulations, but there was something about Kobe Bryant. Eventually, at the peak of his career, it became the ‘Mamba Mentality’. Fans in LA, a generation grew up with this kid. There was an arrogance, there was an arrogance about him that he carried from day one.”
Bryant wanted so badly to be that player, that superstar, that he and O’Neal were sometimes enemies. Bryant did not appreciate O’Neal who often used the start of the regular season to get himself in the right playing condition. O’Neal did not appreciate Bryant who often hunted for a shot that could have been passed to the post. However, once Phil Jackson was hired as coach in 1999, they functioned well enough together to add championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002 to the Lakers’ vast collection.
“People are taking sides, but no one is pro-Kobe saying to get rid of Shaq,” Whicker said. “That’s just the frustration the fans have: How are they going to solve this? Will Kobe agree? Will Shaq agree? Or can they work it out without consent?
“Phil can at least get them, when needed, to work together. Kobe is upset because he wants to be a star, and he thinks he deserves to be a star because he works harder.”
However, the supreme beauty of Bryant’s career has been his continued growth as a player and teammate throughout his career. When O’Neal left to join the Miami Heat after the Lakers lost to the Pistons in the 2004 Finals, Bryant seemed to appreciate there’s more to being a pro than being a player where things flow. He was that, for sure, when he won the goalscoring title in 2006 and 2007, and he was MVP when he finished second in that category in 2008. But he seems to be a different player after helping the United States win the gold medal at the time. Olympic basketball tournament this year.
With Pau Gasol and not much elite talent outside, Bryant led the Lakers to the championship in 2009 and 2010 and was named playoff MVP.
“In my experience, he is probably the most popular LA athlete of all time,” Whicker said. “Just a passion that people have about him. People respect Karim and they love Magic, but Kobe is more like a rock star. And I think it might be because of the different times in which he appeared. His medium is different, obviously – more social media when he’s playing.
“People saw it from day one. He was 17 when he showed up and had this incredible talent, and they saw him struggling with it at first and trying to find his way, and then they saw him win the championship. And then after Shaq left, he really exploded in terms of seeing all his talent. I think people feel how much they want to be great; they all have it, but Kobe always knew what his place would be, even when he was a teenager.”
TSN ARCHIVES: Kobe Bryant, 19, is the NBA’s most thrilling player (December 8, 1997)
KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR (Lakers, 1975-89)
The trade that brought Abdul-Jabbar “home” to LA at the age of 28, after six seasons and a championship with the Milwaukee Bucks, was not an immediate bonanza one would expect. Through its first four seasons, the Lakers only gained a winning percentage of 0.564 in the regular season and won only two playoff series.
The final season has ended when “Airplane” began its two-month shoot, with Kareem playing the co-pilot of “Roger Murdock”, who looks a lot like a certain 7-2 star center.
“I think you’re the greatest,” said young Joey as he visited the cockpit. “But my dad said you didn’t work hard enough to survive. And he said that time and time again, you don’t even run to the field. And you don’t really try, except during the playoffs.”
“I don’t!” Murdock exclaimed, his secret identity revealed. “Listen, son. I’ve been hearing that shit ever since I was at UCLA. I’m out there breaking my bread every night. Tell your parents to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the pitch for 48 minutes.”
Okay, that’s an incredible piece of film history, but we mean on the pitch. The biggest of several Lakers dynasties was conjured up when Kareem joined the No. 1 in 1979 Magic Johnson and then in 1982 the No. 1 James Worthy. All are now enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. But it was Johnson whose skill and style helped cement Kareem and put him in the middle of another five NBA titles.
“Before the Magic came in, he was scoring a lot of points, got a lot of rebounds, but they kept missing. They don’t have a great team,” Whicker said. “Kareem is highly respected, but he’s a bit isolated. He doesn’t really interact with a lot of people.
“And then Magic came, and he kind of forced her to be one of them. She includes him. He had a lot of respect for him, but the first game when they beat the Clippers, the Magic’s first game, they won the game and the Magic went up and gave him a hug, which nobody did. Looks like Karim has a force field.”
When Abdul-Jabbar reminded Johnson that they would play 81 more games like that, Miller said, Magic’s response was immediate: “You keep hitting like that, I’m going to jump into your arms 81 more times.”
Jabbar was 28 when he returned to Southern California, where he has won three NCAA championships with the UCLA Bruins. If his time with the Lakers represented his entire career, his 24,176 points would be behind just 30 players. He won his last championship in 1988, at the age of 40.
Despite being surrounded by stars, Abdul-Jabbar is an important component of those titles. Competition was fierce – among opponents beaten in the Finals were Hall of Famers Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Isiah Thomas – and he averaged 20.7 points and 2.3 blocks across 90 playoff games over the years. championship. His minutes decreased with age during the Final Final years, but he was still important.
“What I think the Magic did best for Karim was bring speed to the game,” Miller said. “Because below, Karim is absolutely unstoppable with those sky hooks. If you’re up against a guy with that talent and skill, your defenses won’t let him get into the paint because something bad is about to happen. So when the Magic brought speed into the game I think he brought a new element to Karim not only being unguarded in the half, but he was forced to run on the floor because Magic pushed the ball.
“It’s an old thing that happens with all Lakers teams: Don’t worry about yourself because if we can win, everyone will be paid, off-field riches will keep coming in pockets and pockets.”
TSN ARCHIVES: Karim Abdul-Jabbar’s retirement leaves a huge void (July 3, 1989)
